User talk:BulldozerD11
Welcome Hi BulldozerD11 -- we are excited to have Tractor & Construction Plant Wiki as part of the Wikia community! Starting a new wiki can be overwhelming, but don't worry, the Wikia Community Team is here to help! We have put together a few guides to getting started. They say imitation is the best form of flattery so absolutely check out other wikis on Wikia for ideas on layout, ways to organize your content, etc. We are all one big family at Wikia and the most important thing is to have fun! * Our guide to Getting Started gives you 5 things you can do right now to set your wiki up for success * We also put together some Advice On Starting a Wiki which provides a more a in-depth look at some of the important things you should consider when building a wiki * If you are new to wikis in general than we recommend checking our new user FAQ If you need help (which trust me we ALL do) you can access our full in-depth help at Help Wikia, or email us through our . Also, you can visit our live #wikia chat channel any time. A lot of the veteran "Wikians" hang out here so its a good place if come if you want to get some advice or simply make friends. Now, go edit! We look forward to seeing this project thrive! Best wishes, Catherine Munro Hello Hi, I'm Wendy, a helper with wikia. I stopped by and noticed your comments about copying from wikipedia. I had two suggestions: 1) if you click "edit this page" on wikipedia, you can copy the wiki-marked code directly. This will leave a lot of redlinks, and require some fiddling on this end, but keeps the sections and everything in the right places. It also keeps all the references and external links intact. 2) There's a template Template:Wikipedia, which you can use to indicate you copied the text from wikipedia. Just type at the bottom of each page. If the article on wikipedia has a different name, try typing . I hope that helps, and if you have any question about anything please leave a message on my talk page! -- Wendy (talk) 01:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC) :Hi. Yes, copying from wikipedia is a great way to get things started. I often find I want to break up their long articles into shorter ones, given the larger "space" of the wiki, but that's after I get all the info in one spot :). :The images on wikipedia are on their servers; in order to see an image on this wiki you have to upload it here. If you click an image on wikipedia, you'll go to a page with just the image, and you can then save the image on your computer (right click on most computers will bring up a menu with this option). Then go to the (which is also in the toolbox on the left as "Upload image") and upload the image to this wiki. Then you can link to the image with in your articles or follow the instructions on the editing page for inserting an image. This can get tedious for lots of images, so I try to get one per article and then expand out as needed. You can also find images elsewhere on the web, save them, and upload them. Or best of all, since you say you repair machines, you can take your own images and upload them if you like. :In terms of organization, there are a number of ways to make tables. For example, table example has a fairly standard wiki table which you can customize to have any number of columns or type of information. Or you can make templates, such as template table example if you meant neatly boxed lists of related links, or Template:Infobox can be used to make a simple table. Which style were you looking for? -- Wendy (talk) 02:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC) wikipedia referencing Hey there, I'm PanSola, another Wikia helper (-: I just want to let you know that, when you take text from Wikipedia, in addition to mentioning them in the edit summary and/or have a line in the article saying "from Wikipedia", it'd be safest to do a full attribution using . You can see one example at Soilmec, where I've done an example. I'm glad to see you getting your wiki jumpstarted using Wikipedia. Keep up the good work, and let me know if you have any questions! -User:PanSola(talk/ ) 02:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC) Hello! Hi Bulldozer! I'm Shawn, a Wikia Hobbies Helper. I just wanted to drop a quick note to say how impressed I am at how much work you've gotten through so far - this is really amazing! Some of the top people at Wikia have been noticing as well! If you need any help with anything at all, please don't hesitate to let me know via my talk page, I'm here to lend a hand with anything you need. Shawn (talk) 17:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC) Bulldozer - I'm going to be making logos for you and another wiki tonight, so as soon as it's done, I'll post it. As far as promotion goes, we're working on getting your Google hits up, too. We'll do our best to try and get some new people in here and helping! One thing that might work on your end: do you belong to any forums, mailing lists or websites that you might be able to mention the wiki on? Getting people you know are already interested in the material to help is a good way of building up a user base. Shawn (talk) 18:28, 18 June 2008 (UTC) The logo is uploaded! Shawn (talk) 08:52, 19 June 2008 (UTC) Archived Discusions Several of the early discussions have been moved to the archive page to reduce this pages size. - BulldozerD11 14:23, March 4, 2010 (UTC) Re: Tractor Manufacturers Question: for the Tractor Manufacturers page, why are you insisting that U.K. be at the top, and "America", (i.e. USA), be next? Why not have the entire listing alphabetized? That would seem to make more sense. I like the break-down by country, (I only did alphabetical by tractor name on Wikipedia List of Tractor Mfgs, except I began separate pages for each major country, starting with India, but haven't gotten any further. I like the wiki for tractors!Scoty6776 19:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC) Re: Categories -But I'm unsure if to put Category:Companies of India & Category:Companies of Pakistan into Asia or a new subgroup of ? . -Also Norway, Finland, Sweden - Europe or Scandinavia ? I think I'd stick with the Continents, at least for now. So ...Asia and ...Europe. Scoty6776 20:39, 19 March 2009 (UTC) What about tractor brands that are built by other companies... "brand" has no manufacturing, just the label? For example, Jinma, Foton, Dong Feng and other Chinese companies especially, build tractors that anyone can import and put their own brand on: Lenar, Tractor King, Bulldog, East Wind, Siromer, etc... see List_of_tractors_built_by_other_companies Scoty6776 13:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC) British Anzani Iron Horse Hi, many thanks for sorting the photo I loaded up, it's the first time I have tried this; lot to learn. You were corrct, I took the photo myself as I own this one, built sometime in the early 1940s as it has a long reach plug on the J.A.P engine; which was fitted to the early engines. There is no makers ID number stamped on the engine block, which is found on later models. Philip56 11:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC) :Reply is on users own talk page - BulldozerD11 12:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC) ::thanks for the tips , will do in future & will add requested information as time permits cheers: - paul :-) Re: Dave Weedons Diamond T Hi BulldozerD11,this is my first few days on a wiki all going well but need help with a photo,i have up loaded Dave Weedons Diamond T but can not seem to get it on to his page. Can you help?(Grader99h 20:41, 27 May 2009 (UTC)) :reply on users talk page Link problem The link to the Dave Weedon Collection on the Rotinoff page is in red and does not work do you know how to fix this?--Grader99h 20:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC) :Link fixed, (difference in link target due to capitalisation of title effects link) - BulldozerD11 more info to come I will be checking the gearboxes on the rotinoff s tomorow as i think the info on the page is wrong, i understand the Atlantic and the super Atlantic have the same,6 speed with 3speed transfer box. Will also have more Diamon T info next week.Ones at a show on sunday.Thanks for the picture editing tip last week.--Grader99h 21:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC) I will get the info when i go to see the sunters and paraby s rotinoffs side by side at Dave Weedons Thanks for correcting the pics i am still getting to grips with editing. There will probably be the Sunters Rotinoff in the tractor pull on Saturday 8th august at Pickering Steam Rally, there will also be a sunters junior constructor on display and both will do the drive into pickering on the saturday night. --Grader99h 22:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC) ---- HYMAC trade mark Discussion Re: HYMAC - moved to archive A message was posted re the ownership of the Hymac Company and associated Trade marks & some of the statements in the Hymac article, by an Antony O Gorman (User:Tonyhymac. Following several edits made to the article by IP user accounts removing material with no explanation give and that were reverted as per Tractor Wiki policy with regards to any edits that appear to be vandalism, the IP accounts were blocked as per Wikia policies on vandalism. Mr Gorman registered an account User:Tonyhymac and made several more disruptive edits and was Blocked. The above (now archived) message was added. After a discussion with Wika staff the account was unblocked on the understanding that constructive edits by the account to increase the factual content and add suitable references are acceptable to the Wiki if in accordance with the wiki's editing and content policies and any disputed material should be discussed before removal. Note on Hymac article No recent constructive additions have been made to the page by the user in the last 6 months so this discussion has been archived with this explanation left. The original messages is available on the Archive page, others are on the relevant talk pages unless those pages have subsequently (from today) been archived - BulldozerD11 15:44, March 4, 2010 (UTC) ; Note on Trademarks Hymac, Caterpillar, Massey Ferguson and JCB etc are all trademarks of there respective owners, and are used on here as part of the discussion, comment and recording of the history of the machines built by these famous notable companies in there various incarnations. The normal style of 'writing' them is as a first letter capitalised lowercase name except were the name is normally just initials, e.g JCB, as is done in most media and books on the subjects. The "Tractor and Construction Wiki" site is hosted by Wikia.Com on servers in the United States. ---- Uploading photos Hello Fantastic website. I'd like to be able to add some photos, especially to some of the traction engine pages, but am struggling to work out how! I tried to add a photo of the first Allchin (669) but my attempts to replace the current "photo needed" symbol with my photo have so far failed dismally! I've then managed to upload the photo somehow, but I don't know where it's gone! Basically I'd love to help fill in some gaps, but how do I get my photos in the right place? Sorry if I'm being daft, this wikia stuff is all new to me! --Martin Smith 17:16, October 11, 2009 (UTC) ::Replied on users talk page Identity Theft Dude, your username is too similar to mine, please change it. BulldozerE11 13:02, November 14, 2009 (UTC) :Who is passing themselves of as who ? D11 is before E11 - BulldozerD11 16:01, March 4, 2010 (UTC) cattle trucks Hi bulldozer Been to lanark again using up my holidays . Remembered you asked for some pics of cattle trucks got a couple today will upload pics . Volvo fh 480 had a top of the range trailer fitted with fans to keep stock cool and water drinking bowls. John taits Scania has a nice paint job on the cab. Heading south to Hexham mart on saturday hope to get some pics cheers :::neil —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neil young (talk • ) Merton Engineering Hi BulldozerD11, Ive updated some more information on Merton Engineering. Can you tell me where/how you know its was taken over in 1968 by Whitlock? Thanks Kevin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevint (talk • ) 14:13, November 29, 2009 (UTC) :See the ref link (Full answer on users talk page) ::BulldozerD11 14:13, November 29, 2009 (UTC) Steelfab 170 Hi Bulldozer I am trying to trace Wallabi60 to find out where he got the pictures of the Steelfab 170 from , do you know how i can contact him direct, are you able to email him direct? Any help would be most appreciated - thanks Julian —Preceding unsigned comment added by Julian carder (talk • ) :Sorry Julian but User:Wallabi60 joined up and added the 3 photos to the site and has not been back since by the look. I dont have anything to do with registration or contact details thats all part of the Wikia.com central system that hosts the individual wiki sites. All i have control of is to Block editors if they Vandalise the site or break any tractor wiki rules etc. Wikia.com admins may have Email contact with users but US data protection laws will apply to Wikia sites. You can try contacting Wikia.com admins using 'special contact' (contact wikia) at very bottom of page below the 3 wikia site spotlight adverts and ask. :Alternatively try searching on similar forum sites for same user name & see if they posted anything similar, is the only suggestions i can offer. :- BulldozerD11 00:40, December 7, 2009 (UTC) RitchieWiki Equipment/Plant wiki BulldozerD11, You may have seen this wiki already, but there may be some info to add to TractorWiki... http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Scoty6776 19:36, December 17, 2009 (UTC) RE: Bolens 800 Hey, hope your doing good. I do know what engine was in the Bolens 800 I'll put in there for you. I been off and on wikia for a year now I have not had much time to work on my wikia but I'll get back to her, I have some good ideas for it but just have not had the time. (Wilberj 04:41, February 17, 2010 (UTC)) Re: your email Please see wikia:User_blog:Sannse/Even-faster-Monaco about the new changes. The you can override the green buttons to make something more fitting by using helpwiki:ButtonFactory As for the pink color in the bottom of the save bar, it is part of the theme you have picked. You can override it with ".accent" in your css. The other issues you mentioned seemed to be fixed now, and were likely the cause of some temporary issues from the launch on wednesday. --Uberfuzzy 20:07, March 18, 2010 (UTC) :Thanks Uberfuzzy for reply. The 'missing' borders reappeared after a few Hours, so after seeing some bits at central I assumed it must have been a 'glitch' from the update that i then found out about (after id sent the message to you). I'was concerned in-case all the templates needed re-coding to fix it, as they looked terrible, after the earlier problems with the importing of templates. :The 'pink' used to be a darker shade that matched colour of the secondary colour of the wiki 'scheme' which rendered clearer (I think). The new pink bit is harder to see on the laptop (more a light cream colour to me). It appears a bit darker now than it initial did but that may be just under different artificial light conditions from daylight yesterday. :I'll have alook at the button thing to update the colours then as they are abit too 'bold' in my opinion. :I would say announcing things in blogs does not reach most users who do not frequent centrals blogs all the time, the site announcement system worked better before. Thanks again sorry to trouble you. - BulldozerD11 22:10, March 18, 2010 (UTC) BulldozerD11 you have done an amazing job with the tractor wikia, finding and organizing a huge amount of information. I just discovered it a few days ago and am new to the editing procedures. Yesterday I tried to edit the Case article (anonymously, because I had not yet registered). The article had something about the first Case diesel being in the mid-30s. I thought it was referring to the McCormick-Deering WD40, not a Case. I see you have since added information about the 1953 Case 500 and the older LAH. I believe the agricultural LAH and industrial LAIH were built from 1942-45, not 1933, and they were based on the LA, not the L. Also I think the "Hasselman"-type engine is really Hesselman. It was a low-compression, spark-ignited, diesel that we usually call a semi-diesel in the US. I'm not aware of any Case crawler built in 1928. The Trackson company (I think) made a tracked conversion of the Case C and sold it as the CD through Case dealers from about 1931-37, but I don't think it was a cataloged Case model. Most of this information comes from: Letourneau, Peter (1993). Case Tractor Buyer's Guide. Motorbooks International, Osceola, Wisconsin. I have a lot of info and photos of American tractors. I will try to add and edit as I find the time. Ed Roberts Edrob 23:55, April 9, 2010 (UTC)edrob Case diesel and crawler BulldozerD11 you have done an amazing job with the tractor wikia, finding and organizing a huge amount of information. I just discovered it a few days ago and am new to the editing procedures. Yesterday I tried to edit the Case article (anonymously, because I had not yet registered). The article had something about the first Case diesel being in the mid-30s. I thought it was referring to the McCormick-Deering WD40, not a Case. I see you have since added information about the 1953 Case 500 and the older LAH. I believe the agricultural LAH and industrial LAIH were built from 1942-45, not 1933, and they were based on the LA, not the L. Also I think the "Hasselman"-type engine is really Hesselman. It was a low-compression, spark-ignited, diesel that we usually call a semi-diesel in the US. I'm not aware of any Case crawler built in 1928. The Trackson Company (I think) made a tracked conversion of the Case C and sold it as the CD through Case dealers from about 1931-37, but I don't think it was a cataloged Case model. Most of this information comes from: Letourneau, Peter (1993). Case Tractor Buyer's Guide. Motorbooks International, Osceola, Wisconsin. I have a lot of info and photos of American tractors. I will try to add and edit as I find the time. :Ed Roberts - Edrob 23:56, April 9, 2010 (UTC) :H Ed thanks for the compliment. - Ive replied on your talk page. RE: Getting a preload template to show and how to pass a title to it Well, the post you made on Central was a bit confusing due to the sub-par grammar. I hope you understand if I ask you to rephrase it, but here's the problem: There is no parameter in index.php to do this type of stuff. On the other hand, if you're only going to use the preload template in substitutions, you can safely use the version I have now to create the stuff. Also, I suggest that all of your preload stuff be placed in the template namespace. It helps keep things tidy that way. Hope this helps. RAN1 (talk • ) :Thanks for your reply Ran1 - Ill' look at your new version in a bit. :Apologies if a bit confusing as I was struggling to explain it clearly. I'm not a 'programmer' but can get by with moderate wiki code, but complex logic and other coding like HTML, CSS & JS are a foreign language to me. Re the location of pre load template 'source code' stuff, that was done the same as in the original code it was adapted from, and other preload templates i had looked at on other wikias. (I should have said were it came from - the german traktorenlexikon on wiki books) - I thought the reasoning was that if its in the 'template' namespace it can get mixed up with normal templates ?. - BulldozerD11 12:14, April 22, 2010 (UTC) ::Well, from what I know, everything that should be used multiple times are almost always in the Template namespace. You can categorize them so that they don't get confused, so that should be useful too. Tell me your thoughts once you get a look at the new version. RAN1 (talk • ) 15:33, April 22, 2010 (UTC) :::Hi Ran1 I've rewritten the original request /query and spilt it into numbered sections, so hopefully its clearer now. There are a number of my other attempts to get multiple options for creating new pages in my sandboxes (see my user page). Some of these and the toolbar at the top of the page came from the Marvell database Wiki. another attempt was based on the Documentation pages preload function. But they all proved too complex for me to get functioning. Then i found this mch simpler one that I just tweaked the displayed text to look more like a std link with a bit of assistance from a admin on wikibooks. :: Added your new version to page here and somethings wrong as it shows all the internal code and does nor create a link to load a new page ? The original version it was based on (used above on that same page) works to create a new page - BulldozerD11 17:38, April 22, 2010 (UTC) :: Now i've looked at changes to Tractor & Construction Plant Wiki:PML Truck I see it still has in it but the title needs to be "List of Preserved } trucks" were } is from the Title supplied to the }}} were } is part of the title of the Template page which becomes "Template:PML }" and as } can be different to the name of the page the "create template" is placed in. I see the use of the subst: to add the name permanently into the new template page. - BulldozerD11 19:37, April 22, 2010 (UTC) Home page Hi BulldozerD11. One problem I notice with the home page is that it's very wide. Many visitors have their screen size set to 1024 pixels wide, which means they need to scroll horizontally to read the page. There's a lot of good information on the home page, but there might be a little bit too much. Did you know there are more than 500 links on the page? I'd recommend trying to reduce that to 200 and focusing on linking to only the most important content. For example, you could link to the calendar on another page instead of including it on the home page. Angela (talk) 01:09, May 6, 2010 (UTC) trouble using Template: infobox tractor I'm doing something wrong. While trying to create a new page (AGCO ST30X) I inserted the Template: Infobox Tractor and edited it. The instructions said to click preview. Nothing happened. Then I saved the changes and saved the page but the changes didn't happen.Edrob 00:17, May 14, 2010 (UTC) Template: Infobox Tractor Hi- Do you know how to fix the tractor infobox. I can insert and modify the automobile and truck infoboxes with no problem but the tractor infobox always saves as the original blank template. infobox tractor, heavytruck Hi BulldozerD11. I last did programming in the days of BASIC and dBase so I'm finding the wiki code very confusing. The Template: Infobox Heavytruck was not something I intended to use. It was just a place to experiment with infoboxes and try to find something that worked. I'm doing that now with a test article, not a template. Whether I insert the tractor infobox template or copy the code to an article, it doesn't work. When I copy the code from a working infobox such as the one in AGCO DT275B, then it works in my article and I can change the data. But I have no way to add new items such as valve arrangement (L-head, ohv, T-head, etc. Even with the rich text turned off, I see only a list of parameters with data, not the actual code like in the template. By the way, would the fuel type row make more sense up with the engine characteristics instead of near the bottom. The truck infobox seems to work if I copy the code into my article and then change the data. In this case I see the code so I can add additional rows for items important in American heavy trucks, such as chassis weight, list price, GCW rating (for tractor/trailer rigs), and component specs like: Timken SQ100 hypoid dual-drive tandem rear axle, 40000 lb capacity or Coleman driven front axle, 21000 lb capacity.Edrob 23:12, May 17, 2010 (UTC) :Reply placed on users own talk page - BulldozerD11 23:53, May 17, 2010 (UTC) Hi. I will add content to the pages A.I.C. Abbott-Downing, etc. I created those blank at first to experiment with what you said about categories, etc. By the way, how do you get rid of a page created by accident (mispelling, etc.)? I'm confused about categories. I have a lot of info on antique American trucks but I don't know where it should go. A search for "List of Truck Manufacturers" redirects to "Commercial Vehicles" but the bottom of that page has "Truck Manufacturers" and "List of Truck Manufacturers". Besides "North & South American Trucks" on "Commercial Vehicles" there is the category "American Manufacturers" on "Truck Manufacturers", "North America" on "List of Truck Manufacturers", plus "List of American Truck Manufacturers". All these lists are different. Is there no single definitive list? Apparently "List of American Truck Manufacturers" and "List of Truck manufacturers" aren't official categories. If I add A&R (for example) to the category "Truck Manufactures", how does it get into the subcategory "American Manufacturers". Next subject: My latest version of a truck infobox is at Templete: Infobox Heavytruck (which doesn't actually function as a templete) with dummy data. It is also used for the pages A&R and A.B.C. I moved the capacity (tons, GVW) to the model description near the top. I don't see why such an important part of model identification should be sort of an afterthought at the bottom. I also added more detail about engines, transmission, and axles. I'm finding it easy enough to copy this format to each new page and then change the data. I'm pretty satisfied with the tractor infobox as is except for it printing "discontinued" twice for model status. I assume somebody who knows how will fix that. Now I will check out what you suggested about namespace. P.S. Re-reading your last message I see you already mentioned the "discontinued" problem in the tractor infobox. Edrob 23:20, May 18, 2010 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://tractors.wikia.com/wiki/User_talk:Edrob"[[User talk:Edrob|Edrob]] :Replyed on users own talk page - BulldozerD11 00:26, May 19, 2010 (UTC) Morton Tractors, etc Sorry to cause you so much work cleaning up after me. I will use my user space for drafts from now on. I didn't know how to do it before. With the Morton group, I was trying to create the categories and subcategories first. I was going to go back and rewrite each page to focus on the specific company or brand name, but I ran out of time yesterday. :Not a problem Ed, I was just getting confused, seeing the same article. Themain problem was somthing had gon wrong during copying as the links had disaperared & some strange effcts were occuring with the TOC & headings. Real life got in the way for me as well. I notice that the tractor manufacturer category is a mixture of company names and brand names. For example, Challenger is a brand name built by AGCO. There is no Challenger company. :The Distinction between Manufactures and Brands needs clarifying, but removing Brands from the list of X pages could be more confusing to casual visitors IMO. But with the categories they need to migrate to the 'correct' one. Categoris are a bit of an iceberg now having started with just a few rather 'vauge' groupings they are expanding rapidly, with sub grouping. Companies were all in one originaly but have now migrated to by country sub groups and even a defuct sub sub group. Initially there was no point having a category for just one or two items, and initialy deleted a lot of the Wikipedia based articles categories but soon, realise it was an mistake (and with links). Now I tend to ad a category for each company's name, as all its products will go in that when added (large corporations may have division as well. I thought I read somewhere that the convention was to leave off "Ltd.", "Co.", and similar words so that is what I was trying to do. I want to use the Morton subcategory name in the "defunct tractor manufacturers" category to lead to all the companies with the Morton name. I want to use the Morton brand name in the category "tractors" for a page linking to the various companies and the Morton tractors they made. I see that you moved the Morton Truck & Tractor Co. from the Morton subcategory to the general Defunct Tractors category. The Morton Tractor Co. is still under Morton. Both names are from books by C.H. Wendel and refer to the same company. On rechecking, I see that he used Morton Tractor in earlier books and Morton Truck & Tractor in later books, but not both at once. I think Morton Tractor should be deleted and Morton Truck and Tractor should be moved back under the Morton subcategory, but I'm hesitant to do it without your OK. :Sorry my message on Ltd, Plc etc was not clear its the 'legal status' initials that are generally not used. In the case of Morton Tractor Co. etc a lot of the names are ambiguous as they are 'common' words & Reliance could be used in articles for other things, there is a Reliance Gear Co.. If you look at the Morton Traction Co. article & the links I added in ready for the companies they included the Co. bit. The 'changing names' of alot of companies & are they the same one is a big problem in general. Use the most common one & redirect others to it. You are getting the hang of editing as I saw the Disambig page you created to clarify it. The pages can bi in multiple categories, as a true 'pyramid structure' will not work, as you need the answer to find it first in alot of cases by going down too many levels (if that makes sense). If Morton Tractor Co. & Morton Truck & Tractor Co. are probably same firm, then redirect to one and add it in to the lead section text (also known as xyz). :If creating 'stub' articles they need to have a Lead (intro) section that makes sense to readers, i.e matches the page title and sets the point of the article out, other wise a redirect to the main article with 'content' describing the subject would make more sense. Pages are best if the have at least one link to go somewhere else or they are a dead end for readers. Hence adding the 'See also' sections and the Navboxes use on most company pages, for companies making similar products. - BulldozerD11 22:53, May 20, 2010 (UTC) A few thoughts If unsure just ask, I'll try to explain why I've done or changed something & my logic behind it if possible, some things were done early on and only now is the 'error' of the initial action becoming obvious. New users are great because they pic up on some of the flaws as they navigate & think in a different way to me. The site has evolved from its initial UK Tractor bias, to cover all makes from the first to the current models & a wide rang of connected companies and vehicle history in general & preservation, but as i've gone off at a few tangents I've lost focus on some sections. The Initial idea was that others could add in ther field of expertise, so i intially whent for a wide generall coverage that could be built on rather than a few in depth article on just a fe makes and models. - BulldozerD11 22:53, May 20, 2010 (UTC) Naming conventions I've found that article names here are all over the place. Some with hyphens some without. Then some will say model and some won't. A lot of redlinks actually have articles but with a different style name and no redirect. I'll try to fix this unless/until it gets frustrating if there's too many! Daniel Christensen 20:20, May 20, 2010 (UTC) :Hi Daniel, Be great if you can fix some of the missing redirects. Naming convention is a 'issue' as different sources use / dont use hyphens & when I started some companies were given the short 'common' name for easy i.e Ford but there are so many different divisions / names used at times. companies such as Massey Ferguson have used both during its life interchangably. Eds post above highlights how it is unclear with some firms as to 'what' is the real name. I'm following wikipedias convention of avoiding Ltd, Plc, LLC, Pty, Ghmb etc unless the name can be confused due to using common words in its title, but Co. or Company is generally fine as it often used by the early firms and clarifies they are bussines. Flagg any problem ones (names) up on the main articles talk page. Names and model numbers with MF are troublesome as they used some numbers for several products and initially I state using page names like MF 135, but then moved to Massey Ferguson 135 but it could be argued that it should be Massey Ferguson MF 135 ? I'm open to suggestions & the creation of a policy page to try to define it better. - BulldozerD11 22:53, May 20, 2010 (UTC) Planter I was surprised to see this didn't have an article; have you created links to it such as on List of agricultural machinery? Daniel Christensen 00:23, May 21, 2010 (UTC) :Also, on DB120, I would think that, with the future and with openess in mind, you would want red links to things like GPS as they are being used more and more in modern times. It would be entirely appropriate to have an article on here on GPS's as they pertain to tractors and farming. Daniel Christensen 00:27, May 21, 2010 (UTC) ::I have sessions when I fill in some of the many missing articles, often when i get a photo of something interesting. Or i look at the special:wantedpages list, but that is severely distorted by the navbox lists. There is the similar seed drill article, but this then gets into the differing names for similar products in different markets, as the term planter in the UK tens to be used for a machine for 'planting out' seedling of vegetables and salad crops. ::Some items on items were an article is unlikly to be updated, but a definition would be usefull are linked to Wikipedia by using the link style GPS. There are so many articles wanted on man subjects that it is a delema as to how many to write from scratch or to copy from wikipedia. I have no problem with you writing a stub & linking to WP for more info, Linking to a wp or other site, or leaving a ed link, as they can all be changed latter if required/ deemed appropriated. It is a delema with a lot of pages how much to link, but certainly common technical terms that users may need an explination of are valid links to have in one form or another, Places, towns, countries are not realy viable to link unless significant. There is also the potential problem of vandalism of obsure pages being missed. For countries I have left some in and thoght of having them redirect to an index page with links to wikipedia, fom summary sections. ::BTW if articles are from WP (wikipedia) originally please add a tag at teh bottom of page for source credit, and in the initial edit summary. (I have a bad habit of rewritting linking them on import instead of saving as 'was found' & then editing it after) - Thanks - BulldozerD11 00:56, May 21, 2010 (UTC) More About Naming Conventions I'm beginning to understand the enormity of the task you took on! At the Heidrick Ag History Center and Hays Antique Truck Museum where I volunteer, we get calls for information all the time. People usually ask for information about specific machines so I'm usually looking up information by brand name. C.H. Wendel's tractor encyclopedias are organized by company and I find it hard sometimes to find the info I'm looking for. I think it's great to list both ways in the wiki. I've been working for several years to organize the info in the museum archives and in my own collection into a sort of computer encyclopedia covering about 1200 makes of American trucks and 900+ brands of tractors. I work a lot with sales brochures so I index my articles by whatever nameplate is shown on the machine and in the sales literature, thus McCormick-Deering "Farmall" and McCormick "Farmall" and International "Farmall" not just Farmall. Now I see that you have to use all of the names that people might use to search for info, which makes the naming tricky. Edrob 01:28, May 21, 2010 (UTC) :Thanks Ed. Dont forget to add pages for Heidrick Ag History Center and the Hays Truck Museum & links for them in Museums List, and any relevant places were they could be usefull such as articles featuring vehicles in the museums collections etc. Include a web link to there web sites in the articles and iWeb Site Links & page and iff possible a link to this site from there web sites. The cross linkability is the Beauty of Mediawiki based sites, but the unstructured data can also cause problems, as you have seen. The other advantages is many people can participate to build the encyclopedia with minimal boundaries as the editors decide what is acceptable and what to excluded. (I tried to write the scope widely anyway to be flexible) :That sounds a fantastic library of info you have access to. I only have a few dozen books & 100s of magazines (and 20,000+ photos to work through from shows & museums visited over the last couple of years. But actually writing from scratch is quite hard at times. There are just over 3000 article now (alot based on wikipedia ones) but also a similar number of templates and images + other pages such as categories. The wanted pages list breakes after 10,000 pages, and alot of the model list are not even links yet. So plenty of work to keep me busy for a few years as well yet. Articles are never 'complete' & can be split when too large into more manageable chunks. It is abit hard to get your head round at first & takes time. the various special:SpecialPages are quite usefull tools along with page histories and watchlists (now following) - Have fun digging deeper your already picking wiki editing & structure up steadily - BulldozerD11 02:13, May 21, 2010 (UTC) What links here Hey how do you get the what links here thing to be in the sidebar? And those other things like multiple upload and contributions and stuff? Mostly I want to know how to add the what links here thing to my wiki. Thanks. Daniel Christensen 03:49, May 21, 2010 (UTC) :Its one of the Media Wiki namespace pages that customizes the interface. Canot remember which at the moment as it was at least 18 months ago when i updated it. Will have alook later. Only admins can access it so you will have to update yours. The boxes below it are changeable using the Widgets link under the 'more' button at the top right of the page. The Whole interface look, buttons, features and colours can be changed by editing the MediaWiki:Common.css file but that can get complicated (too much for me to bother with, best way is to 'borrow ideas from other wikis, but they can go wrong when wikia updates the system & then getting it fixed is a problem). My side bar menu went wrong when i tried to customise it early on but wikia staff fixed it for me. :BTW "What links here" is now a problem due to using the navboxes on most pages, some pages have thousands of links to them, with some 'wanted pages' listing as 600 + pages wanting them created. I should find away of stopping them being included in the count, but early on it was usefull, as i created pages based on the most wanted list. now you have to drill down to below the 'big' numbers to get a better idea of needed pages from 'normal' links - BulldozerD11 11:52, May 21, 2010 (UTC)